Litecoin as an alternative to bitcoin

We've been using Litecoin for over 3 months now and I much prefer it to Bitcoin. For one thing, Litecoin transactions are super quick, taking only a few minutes. Bitcoin by comparison is so slow. One downside is that it's still evolving, so as a result, there are fewer places to spend it than with Bitcoin, but in about 6-18 months, this will change drastically. As far as investment opportunities go, throughout 2013 Litecoin increased in value by 32,000% whereas Bitcoin only increased in value by 5500% for the same period. Very strong in my opinion.

Thanks for pointing this out! His replies did seem awkward but he had me fooled! I hope the real author of the coin isn't offended by these jealous antics. Helping create and being an active part of a vibrant community should be some consolation. To the moon with all crypto!

(1) Psychology matters. People react much better to higher numbers, even with an equivalent amount. Right now 1 LTC is ~US$22. For that, you could send 12771 dogecoin!

(2) Tipping culture. Dogecoin's community is built on top of a culture of tipping and exchange. Right now on bitinfocharts.com/ DOGE has the highest number of transactions per hour of any currency. It's a crypto currency that people actually spend.

(3) Marketing. Dogecoin is a community focused on tipping, giving, and supporting good causes. Plus who doesn't like adorable shibes?

(1) People react to the dollar value, not the inflated number masking it. Unless of course this is based on the psychology of people under 14 years of age.

(2) This tipping culture has been copied and already established by Bitcoin, Litecoin, Peercoin and many others. What you're promoting with Dogecoin is a 'circle-jerk' of people tipping each other pennies.

(3) Dogecoin rests on the shoulders of Meme marketing. And everyone knows the 'staying' power of memes, let alone copycat memes.

Agreed. I hold a spectrum of crypto investments, yet Dogecoin is the one currency I see people actually spending (albeit in tiny amounts, from 10 cents to 2 dollars). Whether Dogecoin has long term longevity or not, only time will tell.

I've checked it out, but it's not nearly as convenient as Bitcoin at the moment. You can't use it in as many places, the exchanges are a bit harder to use and sign up for vs. Bitcoin, etc. I imagine if something like Coinbase started to support Litecoin, you'd see it start to take off.

That said, I'm not entirely sold on the idea of cryptocurrency. Right now, it seems like a fancy pyramid scheme, and people are more concerned with waiting for a boom to cash out on than using it for anything meaningful.

(I have a single Bitcoin. But I'm not really inclined to spend it since the value fluctuates so much each day. Sure, I can buy a new snowboard on Overstock.com with it, but the possibility that my Bitcoin can be worth way more tomorrow, next week, or next month makes me not want to spend it.)

Litecoin is the leader in Scrpyt. It has guided the way for all of the innovation right beside Bitcoin, and I believe it has very announced potential.

Dogecoin is a coin I designed as a joke and it turned out to be a great idea for me to attach the Doge meme to the coin. I'm glad the community is finding ways to use it and we are working hard to update our code all the time!

Thanks to Dogecoin, I can retire early and put the rest into Litecoin.

I actually started mining Dogecoin the other day because all I can offer up is my CPU based mining. Since Litecoin is at a much more difficult rate it would require more of an investment on that front.

edit: Aww, I guess the OP is a troll, lol. Kinda mean spirited with that picture, but good one I guess. Anyway, the sentiment expressed here is still valid. Thank you, real Jackson Palmer.

Thanks for releasing Dogecoin. I have investments in Bitcoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, PPC and Dogecoin. My smallest allocation at the moment is in Dogecoin. So far Doge is the investment I'm most proud of simply because I see a real community behind it doing positive things through the Dogecoin Foundation. Hopefully Doge will emerge as the tipping and micropayment platform Bitcoin and Litecoin always aspired to be.

I moved DOGE to my largest investment because of how awesome the community is and how fast they are at implementing change. I do spend a lot of time promoting dogecoin though, I like to put my money where my mouth is.

I've been mining and using litecoin for about a year now. Purchased some games, sold some games, and now that there are a few coinkite Point of Sales terminals near me, I can actually pay for goods/services with bitcoin and litecoin.

litecoin has something that other altcoins don't have, and thats a talented and dedicated dev team that also happens to work closely with bitcoin developers, and even push changes to the main bitcoin source.

I want to invest around $50 in a crypto currency and do some mining but I'm not sure which is the right one to do so. I hope you can answer some of my questions. I think that because bitcoin's value is so high I think it is not wise to invest in it as it will collapse someday. I was thinking about litecoin or dogecoin. I can find different sites to buy and sell lit coin for USD but I can't find to seem any company offering currency exchange for dogecoin besides some online boards where people offer their doges :) But also for litecoin I'm not sure what's the best currency exchange companies. Could somebody help me out and tell me the best and trustworthy currency exchange sites for litecoin and dogecoin? Thank you!

You can exchange both Litecoin and Dogecoin at cryptsy.com . Their site is slow sometimes but works well overall. However they don't exchange USD, so you'd need to use something like coinbase.com to get bitcoin first, send it to cryptsy and exchange for whatever you like.Hope this helps!

What's often missed is the point of these mined coins is not to mine them. The mining part is supposed to mainly be a one time thing to create a sufficient pool of valid coins, from then on the main point is using them as a currency. The reward for participating in initial mining is "getting rich," but as others have pointed out it's basically a pyramid scheme and there's no real value or virtue in the production of these coins. Personally while I like some of the ideas of these coin systems, I think the miners are largely a bunch of creeps, and don't really want them to succeed and I expect the "traditional" money system will respond to the main needs in a way that better serves the majority of people.

Can't mine NXT tho :( (other than transaction fees) it was dished out to people who bought it at the start. Have to buy it off those early adopters. Doge much fairer, no premine, no pre-distribution :) All shibes equal opportunity.

I don't really care if people can mine or not. I'm not a miner just a software engineer and I talked from a technical perspective! sorry shibe. I never mined a coin. I'm editing to add that my worry is if there will be a coin ever to kick banksters out of our lives more than if a person mining can become another rich guy

My strategy is to diversify my coins by focusing only on the currencies that have something genuinely unique to offer. Bitcoin (the most popular cryptocurrency and the one the 'general public' might actually hear about), Litecoin (the runner-up to Bitcoin...faster, scrypt-based), PeerCoin (Proof of Stake concept), Namecoin (used for Domain Name Services)...I think having some of each of these is a good idea. The next few years will determine which coins win out.

Bitcoin is like the Jacuzzi in the hot tub world...it might not be the best choice but it has brand recognition with the public. This will propel it forward in the future, even if it is slower and has other minor flaws. Bitcoin is gold, Litecoin is silver...at least in my opinion.

I think that is a good way to describe this. I don't doubt that cryptocurrencies will have an impact on how we buy and sell goods, but I don't think there will be a single clear winner.

I think the biggest market with the largest room for growth is with exchanges. I see people complaining (myself included) about the difficulties in buying currencies. Whomever can create the first exchange that is friendly and safe while supporting A LOT of currencies will be the real winner.

I personally have been using Litecoin just as much as Bitcoin. There have been recent Litecoin payment platforms, ATM developments, tipping platforms and many other feasible applications. The Litecoin community is very global and backed by an incredibly strong team of developers.

Litecoin is also the father of the Scrypt algorithm, the original innovator. There have been a plethora of alternative coins which have copied Litecoin, but they will never see the same traction.

As for Dogecoin, this is another clone of Litecoin that rests entirely on the shoulders of a meme and an immature community that attempts to claim usefulness by being used as a tipping coin. This is not feasible as tipping digital coins has been implemented by all of the serious coins first, making this concept another copycat.

At over half a billion dollars in market cap, Litecoin will definitely be paving the road to real world usability, sooner than you'd think. Who knows, perhaps Bitcoin won't stay #1 forever. ;)

It's true the community is "immature" (or "fun loving" to be more positive) and yes it's a copycat, but DogeCoin is transacted far more than litecoin or even bitcoin and not just for for tips already even though it's barely 2 months old!